Series #1 reveal

He was revered by Alexander the Great, by Julius Caesar and Scipio Africanus, the two most remarkable generals of the Roman Republic, by the most well-known democrat of all time - Cicero, by Machiavelli, by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin - who were likely influenced by his principles of ruling well as they drafted the declaration of independence, by Montaigne, Rousseau, Francis Bacon among many others.

He has been hailed as the father of modern human rights.

The Old Testament speaks of him as being "anointed by God" for freeing the Jewish people from slavery in Babylon, gifting Jerusalem back to them and for being the benefactor of the Second Temple on the Mount.

He reigned over the most extensive empire known in history up to that point, from Anatolia to the Indus, from the Arabian Desert to the Steppes. He was the patriarch of one of the greatest dynasties the world has ever seen - the Achaemenid Empire.

He is Kūruš, son of Kaᵐbūjiya, a name whose etymological origin, harkens back to a common ancestry with the Kambojas (an Indo-Iranian Sanskrit and Pali speaking people from the northernmost regions of the Indian Subcontinent - present-day Tajikistan/Uzbekistan ) [Anglicised: Cyrus the Great, son of Cambyses].

Throughout Series #1, we will read the most ancient manual of leadership known to us - the Cyropaedia. Based on the life of Cyrus the Great, written by Xenophon the Athenian (himself a most remarkable leader), c. 370 BCE, the book has served as a manual for ruling well for millennia. This series will attempt to distil the leadership science behind Xenophon's magnum opus.

We'll be using the Wayne Ambler Translation of Cyropaedia. I encourage you to read the book so that you can follow along!

Oh, and Happy New Year everyone! Onwards and upwards!

With gratitude,
Srikanth

References:

1. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cyrus-iii
2. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21200/21200-h/21200-h.htm
3. https://humanitieswritlarge.duke.edu/projects/cyrus’-paradise.html
4. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1902820
5. https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393292497
6. https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801471407/the-education-of-cyrus/
7. https://india.oup.com/product/indias-ancient-past-9780195687859